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Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
21–30 of 311 posts
Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
#22I worked at a quant sports betting trading company, on occasion it would send the employees to place annonymous few grand bets at physical shops because it's such a problem getting people to continue accepting your bets if you are any good. And found out that the more you bet, the more percentage commission you pay to exchanges like Betfair, which is quite contraintuitive - commission goes up with volume, not down. I…
> it's such a problem getting people to continue accepting your bets if you are any good. Why don't they just use those people to adjust their odds faster for everybody else ? Or do they limit the size you can bet rather than just banning you ? > I also found out that the more you bet, the more percentage commission you pay to exchanges like Betfair, which is quite contraintuitive - commission goes up with volume, no…
> Why don't they just use those people to adjust their odds faster for everybody else ?
Volumes are not huge like in finance, you will lose more on the bet that you will make back in your marginally improved odds.
> I guess they try to cream the most addicted people, seems quite intuitive to me.
The professionals, not the addicted. The addicted expire quickly and they typically don't use exchanges anyway.
Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
#23The article appears to break gamblers into 3 groups. 1) casual players 2) problem players 3) professional gamblers. so basically casual players gamble something like 50 bucks a year. Problem gamblers get money however they can (and although it's unstated and I have no evidence, I think this is where the actual money comes from). And finally, people that can snipe the mispriced bets, and make a lot of money. Feels sor…
> Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll. The fact that the pros are simulating problem players because then the betting apps give you more leeway, e.g. by "send[ing] you bonus money" and raising your limits, paints the picture quite effectively in my book. > Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll To what degree is this true? Sure, a…
You nailed the key point my muddy intuition (and the article) failed to express.
Pro gamblers simulate problem gamblers, so they can bet more.
I said, "Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll"
> To what degree is this true?
I don't know the ROI. It's hyperbolic, I'll freely admit that.
But I think there is an important point. We let problem gamblers gamble more, and it's not fair pros take advantage of that dark pattern.
Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll. The fact that the pros are simulating problem players because then the betting apps give you more leeway, e.g. by "send[ing] you bonus money" and raising your limits, paints the picture quite effectively in my book. > Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll To what degree is this true? Sure, a…
You nailed the key point my muddy intuition (and the article) failed to express. Pro gamblers simulate problem gamblers, so they can bet more. I said, "Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll" > To what degree is this true? I don't know the ROI. It's hyperbolic, I'll freely admit that. But I think there is an important point. We let problem gamblers gamble more, and it's not f…
> don't know the ROI. It's hyperbolic, I'll freely admit that.
Being a bookie is making a market. As long as you do your maqth right, your potential for losses are capped--lots of small bets are actually less risky in this respect. Problem gamblers are a cherry on top, far from essential to any gambling enterprise, particularly not one making a two-sided market.
> We let problem gamblers gamble more, and it's not fair pros take advantage of that dark pattern
The pros are the beneficial bacteria checking how much the apps can prey on the problem gamblers.
Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
#25I worked at a quant sports betting trading company, on occasion it would send the employees to place annonymous few grand bets at physical shops because it's such a problem getting people to continue accepting your bets if you are any good. And found out that the more you bet, the more percentage commission you pay to exchanges like Betfair, which is quite contraintuitive - commission goes up with volume, not down. I…
Are you able to tell us more about your operation? Size, scale, profitability etc?
Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
#26The article appears to break gamblers into 3 groups. 1) casual players 2) problem players 3) professional gamblers. so basically casual players gamble something like 50 bucks a year. Problem gamblers get money however they can (and although it's unstated and I have no evidence, I think this is where the actual money comes from). And finally, people that can snipe the mispriced bets, and make a lot of money. Feels sor…
> The pros eat up casino margins.
In games against the house, the house usually ensures that even with mathematically perfect play, that they will still have a margin (though, admittedly, it's a tighter margin than when a bachelor party is drunk and playing blackjack and hitting on 19 because "I'm feeling lucky!").
Most pros play against the other players (i.e. poker, etc.), and the rake is the rake, regardless of that - the old adage, "If you look around the table and can't figure out who the chump is, you're the chump" stands, i.e. you don't have to beat the house, you just have to beat Bob who flew in from Iowa (not intended to insult anyone or anywhere, just more exaggerate the casual player).
Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
#27The article appears to break gamblers into 3 groups. 1) casual players 2) problem players 3) professional gamblers. so basically casual players gamble something like 50 bucks a year. Problem gamblers get money however they can (and although it's unstated and I have no evidence, I think this is where the actual money comes from). And finally, people that can snipe the mispriced bets, and make a lot of money. Feels sor…
> and although it's unstated and I have no evidence, I think this is where the actual money comes from
The article links to a WSJ article that says this group of problem players provides more than 50% of revenue to the betting companies despite being just 3% of all bettors.
> Of the more than 700,000 people in the SMU panel, fewer than 5% withdrew more from their betting apps than they deposited... The next 80% of bettors made up for those operators’ losses. And the 3% of bettors who lost the most accounted for almost half of net revenue
Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
#28The article appears to break gamblers into 3 groups. 1) casual players 2) problem players 3) professional gamblers. so basically casual players gamble something like 50 bucks a year. Problem gamblers get money however they can (and although it's unstated and I have no evidence, I think this is where the actual money comes from). And finally, people that can snipe the mispriced bets, and make a lot of money. Feels sor…
> Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll. The fact that the pros are simulating problem players because then the betting apps give you more leeway, e.g. by "send[ing] you bonus money" and raising your limits, paints the picture quite effectively in my book. > Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll To what degree is this true? Sure, a…
This is backwards. Casinos offer huge cross subsidization opportunities like getting people to spend lots of money in clubs and bars or gamble on games like slots that have a huge house edge while apps have near zero cross subsidization opportunities and massive overhead. An app running at draftkings scale costs a lot to operate.
I’ve believed for a long time and continue to that the math on these businesses just doesn’t work. Eventually they won’t exist because they aren’t profitable.
Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
You nailed the key point my muddy intuition (and the article) failed to express. Pro gamblers simulate problem gamblers, so they can bet more. I said, "Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll" > To what degree is this true? I don't know the ROI. It's hyperbolic, I'll freely admit that. But I think there is an important point. We let problem gamblers gamble more, and it's not f…
> don't know the ROI. It's hyperbolic, I'll freely admit that. Being a bookie is making a market. As long as you do your maqth right, your potential for losses are capped--lots of small bets are actually less risky in this respect. Problem gamblers are a cherry on top, far from essential to any gambling enterprise, particularly not one making a two-sided market. > We let problem gamblers gamble more, and it's not fai…
When the "cherry on top" (problem gamblers) is responsible for half your revenue (from the Bloomberg article), then that's not just a cherry. That's half the cake.
And it's a really, really, big cake.
Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll. The fact that the pros are simulating problem players because then the betting apps give you more leeway, e.g. by "send[ing] you bonus money" and raising your limits, paints the picture quite effectively in my book. > Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll To what degree is this true? Sure, a…
This is backwards. Casinos offer huge cross subsidization opportunities like getting people to spend lots of money in clubs and bars or gamble on games like slots that have a huge house edge while apps have near zero cross subsidization opportunities and massive overhead. An app running at draftkings scale costs a lot to operate. I’ve believed for a long time and continue to that the math on these businesses just doe…
Fair enough, I'm not knowledgeable about casino economics. Focussing only on the gambling, however, I'm scpetical they need whales.